What is a story?

In my last post, I told you that I'm an English major and that I'd share things from my education if there was interest from the reddit community.

I really enjoyed reading responses to the last one. So, this is my second assignment-related post - I'm hoping you guys will enjoy these.

This may be a really short one, though. In my assignment, we were asked to define what a story is, then defend our position as we responded to 5 assigned short pieces. (if requested, I will also let you all know which ones we were supposed to read so that you can respond)

So here is the basic question:

How would you define a story? What is or is not a story?

Thanks for reading / participating!

EDIT: As before (and going forward), I'll post my response in the comments.

Also, as a disclaimer, I won't be using any of your responses for my assignments. I may include your comments or portions of them in assignments, but only with your permission and only if I credit you (if I can credit you as a friend, that'll be your call). For example, as you'll see in my response to this question, I included responses from some of my friends; though I didn't credit them specifically, it was abundantly clear that their responses were not my own.

At it's core, a story is the introduction of conflict followed by resolution/catharsis. Now, what may be called the soul of the story is the character(s) who is affected by the conflict. If there's nothing at stake, the story doesn't work. The conflict is the engine of the story, character is the fuel the engine runs on, and catharsis is the end destination.

I could provide millions of examples, because any published book generally applies. Conversely, it would be difficult for me to find a book that doesn't contain conflict/catharsis, because...well, they just don't get published.

But let's play ball for a minute. I'll give you two examples, both made up. I'll qualify A. as, in my most humble opinion, a story, and B. to be a nonstory.

A: Mr. X is a hard working businessman, married to a woman he loves with a wonderful family and a decent life. One day, he comes home and finds another man's watch on his dresser. He immediately confronts his wife. She tells him that it is a present for him that she forgot to hide. The next day, Mr. X comes home early, in the middle of the day, surprising his wife in bed with another man. As he suspected, she was cheating on him. Using the pistol he keeps in a shoebox on the top shelf of his closet, he shoots and kills the man.

B: Mr X. is a hard working businessman, married to a woman he loves, with a wonderful family and a decent life. One day, he comes home and his wife has cooked him dinner. He eats with his family, watches television, and goes to bed early. The next day, he wakes up and does the same thing.

Now, while A. is not original by any means, it is still most definitely a conflict, while B. is not. In A., Mr. X is put into a situation that contradicts his everyday life, and, as a result, he is forced into an action that results in catharsis for the audience; Mr. X has killed his wife's lover, thus ending that particular conflict.

Of course, it doesn't have to be that black and white. Conflict can be layered and complex. Maybe Mr. X didn't love his wife. Maybe he was cheating on his wife with her best friend. Maybe he had bought the gun weeks before to kill himself. Mr. X's intentions can add a new layer to the conflict. New conflicts can ultimately arise; Mr. X's mother-in-law passes away, leaving her daughter a million dollars. His son is dying of leukemia. The neighbor is burying something in the backyard every night. It doesn't matter; it can go a million different ways as long as it propels Mr. X forward.

B. doesn't send Mr. X forward. He is firmly planted in his normal situation. There's no conflict to show him what's at stake in his life (in Story A., it's his marriage). There's nothing to challenge his situation, and so there's no catharsis. The story never ends, and that's why it's so boring.

I gave some thought to how I should define a story and I was reminded of an employee of mine, who is also a good friend (he's a pretty good employee, too). He takes much joy in, if you can excuse some British terminology(/profanity), taking the piss out of us (his co-workers) by foiling, sarcastically, anything we've said to him with, “Good story, Aaron” (taking myself for example).

When I first learned of this little joke of his, he explained that his wife often relays unimportant (to him) details of her day. For example, she might say, “I bought a watermelon at the grocery store, and the guy tried to charge me $2.99 for it, but I pointed out to him that the price tag ON the watermelon said '$0.99'.” To that, even though I might consider to this to be a decent little story (personally), he might reply with, “Good story, Jamie” (his wife's name).

Of note: “Good story.” is actually a pretty good surprise-punchline, in my opinion. I don't intend to imply that he is the originator of this little joke. I mean, he did come up with, “...that's what she said,” or so he tells me...but I have limits to my gullibility, you know?

I'll admit that when I first considered the question of, “What is a story?”, not that it isn't obvious, that I thought of Josh (the employee/friend). While he's usually just trying to give me a hard time when he informs me (his boss, for crying out loud!) that I've just told him a “good story,” I think there's maybe just a little bit of insight to be found in his antics.

After coming up with my own personal definition, I polled a few valued friends of mine for their own definitions for the word 'story'. I loved them all, so here they are:

“A story is the means by which human experiences and dreams are expressed.”

“Any structured narrative that reveals something about the human condition.”

Actually, his verbiage wasn't as good as mine. So really, in my own defense (as an English-major and story-teller), here is his version:

“Something of which Aaron doesn't know how to tell a good one?”

So now, with an amount of context that is probably unnecessary, and for the sake of argument/assignment, I give you my own definition of 'story':

An account of events (that is worth my time).

If my best friend sat down across from me at the bar and said, “Let me tell you a story,” I'd say, “Tell me!” If he then said, “I ate a ham sandwich for lunch today,” I wouldn't exactly call that a story. I'd be glad to know that he had eaten and wasn't starving to death...but I wouldn't call it a story.